Method and apparatus for producing printed publications



Feb. 27, 1968 J. R. WOODSIDE 3,370,843

METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR PRODUCING PRINTED PUBLICATIONS Filed Feb. 8, 1966 5 Sheets-Sheet l 'INVENTOR.

JOHN R. WOODSIDE M ATTORNEY Feb. 27; 1968 J. R. WOODSIDE 3,370,843

METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR PRQDUCING PRINTED PUBLICATIONS 6 Sheets-Sheet 2 Filed Feb. 8. 1966 g 3 N d m 0 cl NT: Q m ON a Q Q N i M g Q 5 N l 8 6 Q b 8 o Feb. 27, 1968 J. R. woooslos 3,3

METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR PRODUCING PRINTED PUBLICATIONS I 5 Sheets-Sheet 5 Filed Feb. 8, 1966 Feb. 27, 1968 J. R. WOODSIDE 3,370,843

METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR PRODUCING PRINTED PUBLICATIONS Filed Feb. 8. 1966 5 Sheets-Sheet 4 METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR PRODUCING PRINTED PUBLICATIONS 5 Shets-Sheet 5 Filed Feb. 8,

United States Patent C 3 370,843 METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR PRODUCTNG PRlNTED PUBLICATIONS John R. \Voodside, Bronxville, N.Y., assignor to International Business Machines Corporation, Armonlr, N.Y.,

a corporation of New York Filed Feb. 8, 1966, Ser. No. 525,950 8 Claims. (Cl. 27018) ABSTRACT OF THE DISCLOSURE A sheet collating operation is disclosed whereby the number of sheets that can be collated in a single pass through a collator is doubled which includes the steps of printing a matrix of sheets repetitiously on a web in a repeated pattern, with each matrix having at least two unlike sheets positioned laterally of the web comprising a group, and at least two unlike page-ordered sheets along the length of the web comprising a set, cutting the sheets apart while maintaining the predetermined matrix arrangement: characterized by repetitiously stacking the sets of sheets while maintaining the page-ordered relationship of each set as the sheets are moved to obtain a plurality of stacks, placing the stacks in an ordered relationship for collation, removing a set of sheets from the stacks, advancing the removed sets of sheet station while maintaining the relative order among the removed sheets, and advancing the sets of sheets from each of the sheet stations and collating the same with the removed sheets to obtain a plurality of similarly collated array of sheets.

This invention relates to a method and mechanism for producing printed books and the like. In its more particular aspect, the invention relates to the printing, cutting and collating of page sheets constituing a book. An imporant feature of the invention involves the concept of simultaneously advancing a pair of sequential page sheets in juxtaposition through a collating mechanism.

It is a purpose of the invention to multiply by the number of sequential page sheets in a pile from which such sheets are taken in a collating operation by the number of sequential page sheets in each pile.

It is a further purpose of the invention to match the output speed of a collator to the speed of a wire stitcher for most efiicient performance.

It is a still further purpose of the invention to exploit the accuracy of existing paper cutting and slicing equipment and operations and thereby eliminate the need for resort to relatively inaccurate guillotine cutters.

It is a further purpose of the invention to employ checking operations during the collation of page sheets which will reduce or eliminate human error.

In the conventional practice of producing printed publications consisting of separate sheets of paper stapled together along one edge, the printing operation is performed on a web of paper which is imprinted on both sides by passage through a pair of offset presses which are arranged in tandem. Each printing repeat may contain four sheets, for example, thus producing eight printed pages in each repeat. The printed web is cut between each printing repeat to form a press sheet. The press sheets are stacked after which they are separated into page sheets by the use of a guillotine cutter, or the press sheets may be folded into signatures and the associated signatures may then be gathered and separated into page sheets by use of a guillotine cutter.

After the press sheets have been separated into page sheets and have been stacked into piles, one pile for each page sheet of the final publication, a collating opera- "ice tion is performed to gether together in proper sequence the pages comprising the book. A conventional collator consists essentially of a moving sheet collection belt along which are placed sheet feeding stations into which the separate sheets are placed in the form of a pile. Suction feed mechanism moves one page sheet from the pile at each sheet feeding station and places it on a platform above the collection belt. Collating fingers extending upwardly from the sheet collection belt at predetermined equal intervals remove the sheets from the platform, one at a time, and place them all onto the sheet collection belt by which they are advanced. The first sheet feeding station will deliver a sheet from the platform directly onto the sheet collection belt and subsequent stations will place subsequent sheets on top of the sheets from the previous sheet feeding station. If, therefore, the piles of sheets in the several sheet feeding stations are in proper sequence along the length of the collator, the sheets from the various stations will be in properly ordered sequence upon their delivery at the discharge end of the collator. Inline sheet stapling mechanism may be provided at the discharge end of the collator to insert two or more wire staples along one margin of the collated sheets, thereby forming the book.

The present invention teaches a departure from the conventional sheet cutting and collating operation whereby the number of sheets that can be collated in a single pass through the collator may be doubled. This is accomplished in the present method by stacking pairs of sequential sheets in the same pile. It is proposed to print a plurality of page sheets on opposite sides of a paper web in repeats along the length of the web. Each repeat will be at least two sheets deep and at least two sheets wide. The web is then cut into page sheets which are ordered in the direction of their movement. The cutting operation is performed of the printed web by the addition of rota-1y knives and slitting wheels to a conventional press sheet cutter. In the normal practice, a press sheet cutter has knives which cut the web between the printed repeats. An additional rotary knife in this application is provided such that the web is cut transversely between each set of page sheets and at the same time the slitting wheels will sever the page sheets from each other in the longitudinal direction of the web as it passes under the wheels. In this way, each page sheet is separated from the others.

During the pile delivery-operation, the page sheets produced by the extra cutting operation will be handled as though they were ordinary multi-page press sheets in the usual manner. As a result, each pile of sheets so delivered will consist of several different page sheets in repeating sequence. For example, if a press sheet contains four page sheets, two piles will be produced, each containing repeating pairs of different page sheets in a fixed sequence.

The fact that each pile of sheets contains a pair of sequential page sheets is utilized to advantage by removing every other collating finger from the sheet collection belt of the collator. Thus, two page sheets will be removed from each sheet delivery station and placed onto the sheet platform of the collator before a collating finger causes a transfer of the sheets from the sheet platform to the sheet collation belt.

By this method, only half as many books are collated as in the conventional practice, but each book will be twice as large, i.e., it will contain twice as many pages as that resulting from single sheet collation of the conventional practice.

The detailed performance of the method andsuitable apparatus for performing the same, together with the attendant advantages will become apparent from a study of the following detailed description when read in light of the drawings, in which:

FIGURE 1 is a side elevational view of an oifset press and an associated paper slitter and cutter adapted for pile delivery;

FIG. 2 is a plan view of the slitter and cutter taken on line 2--2 of FIG. 1.

FIG. 3 is a fragmentary side elevational view of a sheet collator in which three sheet delivery stations are shown,

' sheet collator and an associated wire stitcher.

In FIG. 1, a printed web W is delivered to a web slitter and cutter by the last press 12 of a pair of such presses arranged in tandem in conventional manner so that the web may be printed on both sides as it passes through the presses. The presses may be any suitable make, as, for example Speedfiex ofiset presses, manufactured and sold by Western Gear Corporation of Lynwood, Calif. The configuration of the printed repeat may vary. It is sufiicient to illustrate the novel method by showing. a repeat pattern such as in FIG. 4, wherein three page sheets are printed across the width of the web and two different page sheets are printed along the length of the web. The number of page sheets across the web will ordinarily be determined and limited by the Width of the press, while the number of diiferent contiguous sheets along the length of the web will be determined by the number of different consecutive sheets to be provided in each pile, as well a by the diameter of the printing cylinder.

In FIG. 4, assuming web movement is in the direction of the arrows, pages 11 and 12 will be printed on sheet 14; pages 9 and 10 will be printed on sheet 16; pages 7 and 8 will be printed on sheet 18; pages 5 and 6 will be printed on sheet 20; pages 3 and 4 will be printed on sheet 22; and pages 1 and 2 will be printed on sheet 24. In each case, the even-numbered pages will be printedon the bottom of the web and the odd-numbered pages will be printed on the upper surface of the'web.

As the web W enters the slitter and cutter 10, it may be punched if it is desired to use the sheets in loose-leaf assembly. This operation may be performed as the web passes under a' punch drum 26 which has therein three circumferential sets of punches 28 which are located along the length of the drum to coincide with the left margins of the respective sheets. In case a punching operation is not to be performed, the web, instead of being fed under the punch drum 26 as shown in FIG. 1, will be fed around a guide roller 30 thereby bypassing the punch drum.

The web is now out in the direction of its movement by a series of four slitting wheels 32 which operate in conjunction with a back-up roll 34. The outer slitting wheels 32 will trim the edges of the web as it passes thereunder. Ordinarily, /1" is trimmed from each margin. The inner slitting wheels 32 will separate the web into three 8 /2" page ribbons. These ribbons pass under a pair of rotary knives 36 and 38 which sever the ribbons transversely to form 11" sheets. In the conventional press sheeting operation, only one rotary knife is ordinarily employed which effectively separates the printed web at each printing repeat to form a press sheet. In the modification shown herein, the two knives separate the web into page sheets. As the severed sheets move beyond the rotary The sheet stacking conveyor 42, as seen in FIG. 2, consists of a plurality of conveyor belts 44 which are trained about idle rollers 46 at the discharge end and about driven rollers 48 at the inner end. Two adjacent setsof rollers 50 and 52 supporting conveyor belts 44 along the inner margin of the outer sheets are enlarged so that the belts running thereover will be driven at a slightly greater rate than the remaining conveyor belts. This will tend to drive the outer sheets outwardly and away from the sheets at the center of the conveyor and thereby avoid lateral interleaving of sheets in adjacent conveyor runs. As the sheets are advanced on the sheet stacking conveyor, they are held in contact therewith by a series of tension rollers 56.

The sheets in overlapped relation are delivered to a delivery platform 58 from which they are taken and jogged into piles. These piles, as it is evident, will now be made up of pairs of adjacent sheets such that pages 9 and 10 will overlie pages 11 and 12 in one stack; pages 5 and 6 will overlie pages 7 and 8 in a second stack; and pages 1 and 2 will overlie pages 3 and 4 in the third stack. Stacks of pages, such as those described, will be printed and formed until the sheets for the entire book has been produced. These stacks are now taken to a collator wherein consecutive pages of the book are gathered.

The collator will have a number of feed stations 60 such as the three stations shown in FIG. 3. The collator may, for example, be a sixteen station GATHER-ALL sheet collator of the kind manufactured and sold by Didde-Glaser Inc. of Emporia, Kans. As shown fragmentarily in FIG. 3, the collator has a sheet collection belt 62 which operates under the sheet feeding stations 60. This belt provides sup ort surfaces 64 for the sheets which are fed thereto. In the present illustration, the belt comprises a sprocket chain 66 which is suitably driven along the length of the collator and which provides support for the sheet supporting surfaces 64.

Each of the sheet delivery stations comprises a top loading bottom feed sheet hopper 68 adapted to hold a stack of sheets S in a somewhat inclined position directly over the sheet collection belt 62. The hoppers provide access to the bottom sheet in a pile for a suction mecha-' nism 70, which, when operated, will engage the leading edge of the bottom sheet and withdraw that sheet from the pile, feeding the same between a feed roller 72 and one or more guide rollers 74 such that the sheet is de posited on a sheet platform which, as best shown in FIG. 6, consists of a pair of laterally spaced rails 76 and 78. Associated with the sheet platform and attached to the machine frame at opposite sides thereof are a pair of brackets 80 and 82 which are designed to catch the opposite marginal edges of a sheet being delivered and assist in the guidance of the sheet to the sheet platform. Also associated with the feed mechanism is a flexible sheet hold-down 84 which is supported over the sheet platform by means of a bracket 86 extending forwardly of each of the feed stations. The brackets 80 and 82 in conjunction with the hold-down member 84 insure that a sheet fed to the sheet platform will lie flat thereon and that a second sheet fed from the same feed delivery station will be delivered on top of the sheet previously fed.

The sheet collection belt 62 is provided with a plurality of spaced upstanding collating fingers 88 which are shown in FIG. 3, and as shown in FIG. 6, these fingers rise between the rails 76 and 78 comprising the sheet platform. Therefore, any sheet which has been deposited upon the sheet platform will be removed by a collating finger 88 as the collating finger engages the trailing edge of the sheet. The collating finger 88 will slide the sheet .along the rails 76 and 78 of the sheet platform until it is free thereof, the sheet thereafter being carried along by the sheet supports 64. A collating finger 88 will remove a sheet in turn from each of the sheet platforms as it is carried along by the sheet collation belt 62. Thus, in the conventional practice, if a sixteen station collator is used,

sixteen sheets will have been collated by a given finger as it moves from the rear end of the machine to the discharge end.

The collating fingers 88 are ordinarily 12 to 13" apart. This distance is related to the rate at which the sheet collecting belt travels. Moreover, the operation of the suction mechanism 79 is so timed that a single sheet is conventionally deposited onto the sheet platform during the interval in which a collating finger 88 approaches the sheet feeding station and passes therethrough If now alternate collating fingers are removed, such as the finger 88 shown in dotted lines in FIG. 3, and each other finger so situated is also removed, and the rate at which the sheet collection belt 62 and the suction feed mechanism 70 remains unchanged, it can 'be seen that two sheets will be fed from each sheet delivery station during two successive feed cycles before a collating finger 88 moves the sheets from the sheet platform, Thus, as shown in FIG. 3, a sheet S has been delivered to the sheet platform in a first-delivery cycle and a second sheet S is in the process of delivery in a second delivery cycle. The sheet S will have been delivered on top of the sheet S by the time the collating finger 88 engages the sheets for removal from the sheet platform.

It can be seen from the foregoing that the size of a book which can be collated at a single pass through a sixteen station collator can consist of as many as 32 sheets (64 pages) which is double the amount that can be collated according to conventional collating practice.

If three consecutive page sheets are printed in alignment on the printing web in a printing repeat, a stack can be formed thereof in which sets of three consecutive sheets are arranged in the stack in repeating order. In the collation of stacks of sheets so arranged, each adjacent two collating fingers will be removed from the sheet collection belt. When so altered, the collator, without any further change, will deliver three consecutive sheets at each sheet delivery station before the approaching collating finger becomes effective to remove the sheets from the associated sheet platform. In other words, the vacuum mechanism 70 will perform three complete cycles at each sheet delivery station before an approaching collating finger is brought into operative contact with the trailing edge of the sheets. Under these conditions, a sixteen station collator is capable of collating 48 sheets (96 pages) at a single collating pass.

Since the invention herein was conceived in connection with the production of books which ordinarily have fewer than 96 pages and frequently fewer than 64 pages but ordinarily more than 32 pages, an entire new book can be collated at a single collating pass. This greatly facilitates the assembly of such books.

Most collators include an electrical sensing and control mechanism 90 associated with each of the sheet feeding stations capable of detecting the total absence of a sheet and in some cases the presence of more than one sheet. In addition to such control mechanism, the present invention also contemplates the use of a mark-sensing device 92 for sensing the sequential order of the sheets being fed from each sheet delivery station, and for controlling the operation of the machine to avoid the collation of sheets that are not in proper sequence. The system depends on a check mark such as the mark 94 on the printed sheets, as shown in FIG. 4. This check mark is formed on every other sheet, for example, during the printing operation and may consist either of a printed mark or a hole punched in the sheet. The reading of the sensing device 92 will be compared to a standard so that any sheets out of sequence will be detected, and the operation of the collator will be halted until corrective action is taken.

A further modification of the collator is required for the collation of books having an odd-number of sheets. Under such conditions, all of the sheet feeding stations will contain piles of sheets consisting of pairs of sequential page sheets with the exception of the last station which will contain only the single odd-numbered page sheet. This irregularity is met by deactivating the suction feed mechanism at the station in alternate feeding cycles. This will result in the feed of a single sheet at that station during the time normally taken to feed two sheets onto the sheet platform at the remaining stations.

As the collated sheets are fed from the discharge end of the collator, such as the sheet assembly 96 in FIG. 7, they pass onto a conveyor 98 and a pair of feed belts 10% and 102 from which point they are delivered to a live roll delivery bed 104 which turns the collated assembly of sheets 25 to 30 as it is fed to the input conveyor 106 of a wire stitching machine 108. The turning of the sheet assembly is required by reason of the fact that the trailing edge of the assembly is the binding edge as it is discharged from the collator, and in order to form a generally in-line assembly between the collator and the stitching machine such that the operators side of each unit can be reached by the operator without difficulty.

It is obvious from the foregoing specific teaching of the method that the same results can be obtained in a somewhat different manner. For example, without mechanically altering the collator, it is suggested that two consecutive sheets may be fed at each of the sheet feeding stations by operating the sheet feeding mechanism in regular continuous cycles while advancing the sheet collection belt intermittently. According to this modification of the method, the sheet collection belt would remain at rest while the first sheet, for example, is fed to the sheet platform and then resume forward movement while the second sheet is being fed to the platform.

According to still a further modification, it is suggested that the timed relationship between the sheet feeding mechanism and the sheet collection belt be altered to achieve a similar result. According to this alternative, the sheet feeding mechanism may be caused to operate at a rate fast enough to deposit two sheets onto the sheet platform while the sheet collection belt travels from one station to the next succeeding station. Rather than increase the speed of the sheet feeding mechanism, it may be found more convenient to retard the forward movement of the sheet collection belt such that the collating fingers will advance from one station to another during the time required to feed two sheets onto the sheet platform.

From the foregoing, it can be seen that the maximum number of sheets collated in a single pass of a collator is multiplied by the number of sequential page sheets in each pile; that the collator output speed, measured by collated books as opposed to the number of sheets, is more efliciently matched to the speed of the wire stitcher; that the accuracy of existing cutting and slicing mechanism is exploited and the need for inaccurate guillotine operations is eliminated; and that the introduction of an additional electronic check reduces human error.

The objectives of the invention are, therefore, fully attained by the practice of the novel method herein and without any substantial modification of existing equipment.

What i claimed is:

1. The method of manufacturing a collated sheet publication comprising the steps of: printing a matrix of sheets repet-itiously on a web in a repeated pattern, with each matrix having at least two unlike sheets positioned laterally of the web comprising a group, and at least two unlike page-ordered sheets along the length of the web, comprising a set, cutting said sheets apart while maintaining the predetermined matrix arrangement, repetitiously stacking the sets of sheets while maintaining the page-ordered relationship in each set as the sheets are moved to obtain a plurality of stacks; placing the stacks in an ordered relationship for collation, removing a set of sheets from each of said stacks, advancing such removed sets of sheets to sheet stations while maintaining the relative order among said removed sheets, and advancing said sets of sheets from each said sheet stations and collating the same to said removed sheets to obtain a plurality of similarly collated array of sheets.

2. The method of manufacturing a collated sheet publication comprising the steps of: printing a matrix of sheets repetitiously on a web in a repeated pattern, with such matrix having at least two unlike heets positioned laterally of the web comprising a group, and at least two unlike sequentially ordered sheets along the length of the web, comprising a set, cutting said sheets apart while maintaining the predetermined matrix arrangement, moving said cut sheets while maintaining their predetermined matrix relationship, repetitiously stacking the sets of sheets and collating thereon another set of sheets.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein said sets are arranged in page-ordered sequence prior to the collating operation.

8 4. The method of claim 2, in which said cutting operation is performing on said web while the latter is moving in the direction of its length.

5. The method of claim 2, in which said sheets of each of said sets are in numeric sequence. 1

6. The method of claim 2 in which said web is im printed on both faces thereof. a j

7. The method of claim 2,'in which said collating step is performed as a continuous operation. 7

8. -A method as defined in claim 1 including the follow ing steps: 7 t

detecting an out-of-sequence feeding of the s'heets'fironi the required predetermined ordered relationship of the sheets in the stacks, and halting the collation operation in response'to detecting an out-of-sequence condition. I

References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 3/1965 Gibson 270- 58 3,271,022 9/ 1966 *Sather et a1. 270-58 EUGENE R. CAPO'ZIO, Primary Examiner.

25 P. WILLIAMS, Assistant Examiner 

